Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Some more bold predictions and Fred Segal of Freezing Cold Takes joins

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

Matthew Coller goes through a few more of his bold predictions for 2023 and talks with author Fred Segal AKA Freezing Cold takes about his book on some of the most hilarious bad takes in NFL history. You'll never believe what people were saying about the Herschel Walker trade at the time! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collard here. Now, I know the other day that I promised that I was going to go live on Wednesday night on YouTube and go through all of my 25 or whatever, number 26 through 50 predictions after we did some highlights from the first 25. And I did that, but unfortunately I made a little bit of an audio mistake. And so I went and streamed live for like an hour with kind of shoddy audio that I don't really want to use on the podcast feed because I think it will drive you all insane. So I apologize for that. It was a fun show, but it was a mistake on my part, audio-wise, that hopefully will not happen again. But I did not want to leave you out on Predictions Week of some of the bold-ish predictions that we talked about on Wednesday night.

So I'm going to run through a couple of those. And then I have a really fun interview with Fred Siegel, who operates the Freezing Cold Takes, Old Takes Exposed Twitter account. He also wrote a book that is extremely well-researched that has all of these NFL Freezing Cold Takes. That's really funny and it's a good interview. So I'll bring that to you momentarily but let's go through some of these these bold takes as well also another note had to reschedule kaylin kaylor of the athletic uh she had something come up and so we're gonna connect next week also keep an eye out next week plenty of fans only questions have been stacked up throughout the week if you want to send me more go to purpleinsider.com or send me a tweet at Matthew

Collar with your question. DMs still work on Twitter. So jump in my DMs with any question that you have. Next week, we're going to start getting into those positional previews and that will be a really fun time. So let me get into some of the bold or kind of bold takes from my 50 list for this year. And if you want to see the entire list purpleinsider.com sign up to be a purple insider subscriber there you get every article sent ad free right to you the friday mailbag uh in the season film pieces so everything you could ever want there and uh access to the chat as well where you you can jump in, chat with other Vikings fans, including me. Okay. No more self-promotion. On to the bold takes. Number 26 on my list is that

of the Vikings who left, Delvin Tomlinson will have the highest PFF grade. And I think that might be a little bit bold considering that Zedarius Smith also went to the Cleveland Browns, and Zedarius has been a PFF darling for years, but Delvin Tomlinson is younger than Zedarius Smith, and I think he's still ascending as a pass rusher. He was the only guy that the Vikings seemed really upset about having him go, that they had openly campaigned for Delvin Tomlinson to stay. I think they wanted him to be a long-term part of this team. He ends up getting a massive contract with Cleveland for a reason. He's going to play a lot there, have a lot of opportunities with great pass rushers to put up good numbers.

And he's also just one of the most consistent players in the entire NFL. So you could see Adam Thielen getting a lot of targets, but maybe not grading super high or Patrick Peterson regressing from where he was last year, where, wow, his stats were great. If you look at the PFF numbers, whether it's the targets, the past breakups, the grades, whatever it was, but you know, I think for a corner, his age and he's changing teams again, might not put up quite the numbers. I think he could still be good because he has great instincts and football IQ.

But last year was maybe the last great Patrick Peterson year. And, you know, Delvin Cook, we don't know where he's going to go yet. So I think that Delvin Tomlinson has the best chance to thrive away from the Vikings. Eric Hendricks could be good in Los Angeles, but his best days are probably behind him. So I'm going to go with Delvin Tomlinson. I also predicted number 28, the teams will regret not drafting receivers higher. I know that I talked about this a little bit with Tej Seth, so I won't dive into the whole rant.

But when you go back and look at the draft and then look at those guys who were picked in the back half of the first round, especially like a Jackson Smith, Najigba, Jordan Addison, Quinton Johnson, Zay Flowers. I mean, all these guys. And I think, I mean, Smith Najigba dropping as far as he did was a little odd to me. I thought he might be a top 10 pick ahead of those other guys, but they all are going to fit into roles right away. And what's your best guess? Maybe two of them have really good seasons and, you know, maybe one doesn't have a great season or something like that. But if two of them have good seasons and these other teams drafted running backs and tackles and stuff like that, you know, it's good to draft a tackle, but for some teams like Arizona who really needed a

weapon, maybe it would have been better with DeAndre Hopkins leaving to try to get a future wide receiver there. But what the NFL has so often done with guys like Debo Samuel, A.J. Brown, Justin Jefferson, is they've always kind of found a reason to not take them super high. Well, this guy's a little too small. Well, this guy didn't have quite the stats we were looking for or the perfect whatever. It's like if you're not Julio Jones or Kelvin Johnson, you can't be that guy, and that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So I think that there will be regrets.

The other night on the chat, people said this was not a hot take at all, but I think Makai Blackman will play more snaps than Andrew Booth Jr. My hottest take was that Mac Jones will be considered a franchise guy by the Patriots by the end of the year. I think that Mac is going to really bounce back this year with a real offensive coordinator and I think that you could ask for the definition of franchise guy but what I mean is by the end of this season, that he will have played well enough for people in New England to be saying, okay, this is our quarterback. That doesn't guarantee he's going to be long-term the quarterback of the Patriots or a superstar. And I am going for bold here. I just think that last year was such

a bogus year with bad weapons, which they've improved this off season, a horrendous offensive coordinator situation that was well, well below what you would expect for NFL level. And I have no idea what Bill Belichick was thinking, but if you go back just to 2021 and his rookie year, he was considered kind of a rising type of star quarterback maybe, or at least good enough

in the Jared Goff or Jimmy Garoppolo or Kirk Cousins type of category being that guy. And I think that we've seen this before where a quarterback has a great first year and then has some regression. I mean, this was like the Baker Mayfield thing, right? And then eventually, after three years, I think people were talking about Baker Mayfield as Cleveland's long-term quarterback. So it's not a guarantee he's going to be the next Bledsoe or Brady. It's just that I think he's going to have a bounce back year and will be trending in the right direction by the end of the season. But who knows with the whole contract thing and if he becomes highly paid and everything else. So it's kind of a nuanced take there.

Another quarterback will emerge outside of Caleb Williams and Drake May. I think that's very plausible. I was looking back and there's only a couple of times, even in the last like seven, eight drafts. And of course, 2021 was one of them. But most of the time there's three first round quarterbacks. And the order of those three first round quarterbacks and the order of those three doesn't necessarily dictate um you know like how uh it ends up playing out like the

order of them does not guarantee so usually and even like when we learn about the guy doesn't guarantee it we just learned about anthony richardson at the beginning of last year he wasn't somebody that was targeted over a long period of time as being like this clear cut top quarterback. And, you know, like someone like Bryce Young for a couple of years was considered to be someone who could be drafted at the top. Anthony Richardson just shows up. And I think that that will happen with somebody this year. I just, you know, could not possibly begin to predict who without a lot more knowledge of college football. But I think as it relates to the Vikings, they could have their opportunity to draft somebody, one of the top three quarterbacks.

And then if you look at, you know, how far the Chiefs went up to get Mahomes, how far the Bears went up to get Fields, it starts to feel possible that the Vikings could have a good season and then still be in line to draft one of those quarterbacks. But maybe we're getting a little far ahead of ourselves. I also have Dallas is entering the playoffs as favorites to win the NFC. That does not mean that they will not blow it in the playoffs. They'll probably, because Mike McCarthy is their coach, blow it in the playoffs. I just feel like, and again, being bold, they have a chance looking at their roster, a very good chance to have the best record in the NFC or to be hot going into the end of the season and have Vegas really like them and the gamblers really like them and talking about them as the

favorite to go all the way to the Super Bowl. And then, you know, they'll blow it at some point in the playoffs. But that team, there's very few teams that have a better top to bottom roster than Dallas. And also with Philadelphia playing all the way to the Super Bowl last year, losing some players. And remember last year, they had a very easy schedule. So even if they regress and win 11 games, they're still a really great team, Philadelphia, and have a chance to go back to the Super Bowl. But Dallas could top them with 12 wins. So that's kind of my logic thinking about that one.

I'll find one or two more here to bring up, and then you can read the article if you want. This is just for you guys. The Packers will be forced to learn a new word, rebuilding. They have never had to learn this word. I don't think rebuilding was something that was even talked about if you go back to Dan Majowski. So as long as Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers were there, it was try to win the Super Bowl every single year. There was almost no such thing as trying to really rebuild.

It was just all in all the time. And now looking at that roster and going to, if you want to have some fun, go to overthecap.com and look at their 2024 cap situation. It is absurd. They have some older players. They've been trying to draft receivers and build up that bullpen and so forth.

But if this year they are a seven-win team or something like that, you're looking at a lot of rebuilding parts of that roster that they've had to rebuild rosters, but always through the lens of trying to win the Super Bowl every year. And there's only been a couple of years during that entire time where you could argue that maybe they could have seen it coming because their roster was down in a particular year but for the most part they have never had that they've had they've had kind of years in between where they weren't as much of a Super Bowl contender but almost guaranteed it since Favre became a star and maybe someone knows how

to do this but if you looked up historically their odds to win the Super Bowl I'm sure they were always in the top half of the league if not the top 10 every single year except for maybe when they went from Favre to Rodgers and other than that or maybe late in Favre's career when he was starting to fade a bit in Green Bay but other than that almost every single year another bold prediction here is that Harrison Smith's Hall of Fame discussion will flare up when he makes his seventh Pro Bowl. Six Pro Bowls does not historically get you in the Hall of Fame if you're a defensive back. If you look at like Dennis Smith or Tim McDonald. But seven is a different plateau.

And I know how silly Pro Bowls are to look at. But I also know that Hall of Fame committees how silly Pro Bowls are to look at, but I also know that Hall of Fame committees look at Pro Bowls. I wouldn't do it that way, but they might do it that way. And if you have as many Pro Bowls as Earl Thomas, Daryl Green, Darrell Revis, you start to get in rare air. And I also feel like with Brian Flores' defense, there's going to be more attention, more opportunity for him to make big plays, and that he'll get a little more attention for the Pro Bowl than, say, the last few years when they have had bad defenses. I've got Ryan Wright with a 75-yard punt and two completed passes. It's pretty specific. Doesn't have to be in the same game, but they did attempt two passes last year. So I think that they could try that again.

And I'll give you two more hot ones. Number 47 on the list is Lewis scene playing more than 500 snaps. I don't want to overreact to what we saw in mini camp. I think over the period of the summer that we'll see Lewis scene get more and more action. And throughout the season that Brian Flores will want to find a way to play, even if he isn't the starting traditional safety Flores has used three safeties a lot in Miami that I think they're going to want to find ways

to get Louis seen on the field as a first round draft pick. And as a guy who runs four, three, seven, his size, there's gotta be something you can do with this guy. And it would, I don't know, it would really be rough if he can't find his way on the field at all. So I'm going to lean toward Lewis Seen does get opportunity this year. And I'm not going to overreact to what we saw just in minicamp a couple of weeks ago. And the last one is that the kicking will be fine. Greg Joseph will be fine. He won't be spectacular.

He will not be terrible. He will be just okay. And there won't be that many complaints by the end of the year about the kicking, which is maybe one of the boldest predictions I've ever made in my entire life. But I think it's going to be okay. Greg Joseph, you know,

showing some confidence in him, bringing him back the way he turned things around, hit the 61 yard game winner last year. Like he's, you know, I think he's a good enough kicker. I don't think he's a great kicker. I think he's a good enough kicker. And I don't think there'll be a whole lot of kicking drama. So I am testing fate by making this prediction, but I'm believing in it. I'm being bold. All right, let's get to our interview with Fred Siegel, a great author of a super fun book, looking back at some of the worst predictions. We talk about my best and worst ones as well, and some that have gone sideways throughout Vikings history. So we'll jump into that. Thank you all for listening,

and we'll catch you soon. Joining me here on the show is Fred Siegel. He is the author of Freezing Cold Takes, NFL Football Media's Most Inaccurate Predictions and the Fascinating Stories Behind Them, a great book that stemmed, Fred, from your Twitter account. I'd love to know, because of course you became Twitter famous from all of us having bad takes and you exposing them, but how you got the idea for the Twitter, how you got the idea for the book, because it's a super, super fun read. And I, even just after reading it cover to cover, have gone back and referenced different takes that people had.

And just it's extremely, extremely fun and a great book for people to read. But I'd love to know the backstory on it. Well, with the feed, I started the Twitter feed in like 2015 as a counter to sports media. Sports media people reposting their accurate predictions on Twitter, self-congratulatory messages to themselves. And I said to myself that someone should be the person who reposts the tweets and the quotes where some of those media folks turn out to be dead wrong. And so I became that person. I didn't expect the feed to become big, but it did. It eventually allowed me to get into the book. The book I wanted to do for a while. It took me a long time to get someone

to publish it, but I wanted to do something in longer form because unlike social media with Twitter where there's really only room for a quote or a tweet, the book lends me the ability to tell the stories and provide context into why some of the journalists had their opinions. And I didn't want to make it a historical extension of my feed where the entire book is just a list of bad tweets and quotes. I wanted to write some of the most infamous, like, ill-fated quotes and write about not just a backlash to what was going on at the time. No, and that's what I really love about it is it's also very easy to be old takes guy and be like, ah, got you. But you have to, which is part of the fun.

And I enjoy it. Trust me. And I used to, people used to get really mad at you at first. And that was actually part of the entertainment for me is if a journalist had a bad take and they would yell at you for reposting it. And the thing is that, and anybody who's been listening to the show this week, when I went over my takes from last summer is you can't predict sports.

That's one of the best parts about it. And we're all wrong sometimes, but I love the different layers of wrong. There's like the wrong of complete absurdity. Why would you ever say this? And then there's, I actually understand why people thought Ryan Leaf was going to be so good. You know, so there's, and that's part of the, I think,

enjoyment of the book is going through all of the context. But I have a surprise for you, which I consider to be my best take of all time of any take I've ever had. And I tagged you in it on the day that it happened. So I have my screen share up here and I am going to show it to you on the screen. Hold on one second. Let me pull this up. All right.

There it is on the screen from at Matthew collar, April 27, 2017. I tweeted Patrick Mahomes will be the best quarterback in the draft. I'm not afraid of you. That's a bold take to expose. How do you like that, Fred? It's good.

It's a good one to have because it wasn't like an opinion that everybody had. So it's a good one. Some people will tag me to the number one overall pick in the draft. Like five years later, this guy's going to be great. Some people will tag me to the number one overall pick in the draft. Like five years later, this guy's going to be great. Yeah, I mean, like this doesn't really get much clout because everybody thought he was going to be great. But to say that, he wasn't in the draft, but there certainly wasn't that opinion, overwhelming opinion,

he was going to be the best quarterback in the draft no sure and i'll tell you just the the slight backstory on that was i was never a draft guy so i was entirely um like interview draft people listen to what they say and so forth but that year i was kind of interested in the quarterback class and so i started looking at it like uh okay, who do we got out here? I'm not a big college football guy. I started watching film. And when Mahomes made, I think it was the side winding throw where he's running to his left and then he turns back and he flipped, like flips all like 60 yards. I was like, this guy could be the best quarterback of all time. I actually called my wife in from the other room and I was like, you have to see this. This is the

most insane thing I've ever seen. This quarterback is my guy no matter what. Now, I will tell you the worst take I've ever had. I didn't tag you in it. But I also thought Josh Rosen was going to be the best quarterback in that class outside of – I did like Lamar. But there was a remarkable – you could do a whole other chapter on the Josh Rosen people. I was a Josh Rosen person. It just never happened.

His college tape was good but there it just a lot of times with the old takes what happens is there's reason to think that someone could be good and then it just never materializes yeah yeah i mean it happens a lot with a lot of a lot of players like the hype is hype is very it comes in such bunches and it's so strong. Constant quotes and people saying things and everyone giving their opinion. It's just like it all comes at once. It's so jading. It gives you such a jaded opinion about a player.

Sometimes you automatically think that they're not that good because there's so much hype. I remember that happening to me with Jason Hayward where I think it was Tim Kirkson was calling him the left-handed Albert pools when he was a rookie I was like how are we doing this to this guy and I actually sometimes Fred I actually feel bad when this happens because I think this is so unbelievably unfair to that player to be compared to somebody like when Benyana in the NBA like well you know he's if he's only Durant he's kind of not like what because it's not fair to him yeah he and he and yeah he's he's one of those guys and like to control now it's even more the judgment is even more just uh strong and aggressive like from right away uh they don't give a time person a time to develop but that was 15 years ago it wasn't assumed that a guy was going to play well right away or just uh

be so impressive right away this guy's they're trying to give him that particular hype that he's going to be great right away and that's's like impossible. Right. Especially with NBA players who are coming into the league at the ages they're coming in. But even with NFL quarterback, where we give them absolutely no time, like we decide within the first year, this guy is a bust, this guy is a success. And when I looked back at it, so Geno Smith was part of my worst take of last year, thinking that he would lose the job to Drew Locke and they would just be horrible and try to draft number one. But Geno Smith's a good example of a guy where even his team decided after two years, and then we all decided, well, I guess Geno Smith just can't play. And then many years later, he's freezing cold taking us. But I wanted to talk about some Vikings

ones or Vikings related, including the Packers as well, and some of your favorites from the book. So the Herschel Walker trade. Now, this is known in Minnesota, as I am sure you are aware, as the worst trade of all time, although Rudy Gobert is on the way to putting his name in that conversation. But I mean, this is like part of being Minnesotan is to reference the Herschel Walker trade in regular conversation. OK, it's that bad. But the funny thing that that I didn't realize in your book, because I was pretty young when Herschel Walker was becoming a Viking, is that the initial impression was that the Vikings had done extremely well in this herschel walker trade and there is a great michael wilbon quote in here saying that they didn't give up enough to get herschel walker to take me take me through the the journey of herschel walker trade takes well the herschel walker trade itself was you know

mike lynn was the was that the guy's name? General manager for the Vikings at the time? I think his name was Mike Lynn, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yep. He was – he needed somebody to – he needed a running back, and he thought this was their last window. They had a window for the Super Bowl.

And he thought he needed a running back. He needed another great player. So they traded everyone. He knew he was going to be fired if they weren't going to do well. So he didn't care about the future. So he traded all the draft picks. On the other hand, Jimmy Johnson was like tanking. He had a terrible team, and he didn't think Herschel Walker fit his style.

And so he basically gave up a gazillion draft. He received a gazillion draft picks for Herschel Walker fit his style. And so he basically gave up a gazillion draft. He received a gazillion draft picks for Herschel Walker of the Vikings in the future, but he also was able to take those picks and trade them into more picks. So he ended up getting like 17 picks in the 91 draft, I think. So when you have that many picks now people want to do a little about jimmy johnson he was the dolphins he was not really great at drafting he because he had the same amount of picks but with this draft he had so many picks it was like he even said he said

you can't screw up with this many picks so he and he also made some great trades and some great guys from free agency. But with the Vikings, what happened was Herschel Walker came in and he was – I don't know how amazing he was his first game. He had some amazing runs. He had a great kick return against the Packers. It got called back, but it was like his first touch of the ball. He ran for a like 40-yard gain. He got like 130 yards total and two touchdowns. And that was it. I mean, everyone thought it was the greatest thing ever.

The next game they won two and he had more touchdowns. And then he started getting less and less carries because they didn't – they realized that he didn't fit their offense at all he was a straight up eye running back and they didn't they used two backs in the uh uh i mean they they used like they wanted more of like a quicker back and herschel walker wasn't that he was like a more of a guy who the middle it didn't their offense. They had to change their entire formation. And Jerry Burns just realized right away it wasn't going to work. And they started giving him less and less carries.

And I don't know if they made the playoffs that year. But after that first game, I mean, there was a newscaster. I think I put the quote in there. He was like, that must have been the most satisfying thing I've ever watched. Everybody was so i love that sandwiches after him people were going for halloween dressed as herschel it was like two weeks later when the when the cowboys made the trade uh certain people were like why would you do why would you trade your best player for just draft picks and nobody realized that he was tanking. They went 1-15 that year, and tanking wasn't a thing back then.

So it was hilarious. But the quotes on that trade alone from both sides is incredible. But I think maybe the funniest part was when Herschel had that great game to start. And people were chanting Herschel had that great game to start. And people were chanting Herschel. And at the game, Vern Lundquist said, who was the great running back for the Vikings in like the 70s? Chuck Foreman. Chuck Foreman was in the crowd during that game against the Packers,

where Herschel Walker was his first game. And Chuck Foreman was there, and Vern Lundquist was the play-by-play guy for CBS, and he said, oh, there's Chuck Foreman, the all-time best running back in history, Minnesota Vikings, until today. He said, until today, Gus Herschel had those two touchdowns. When Herschel went back to receive the kickoff,

and it was like it wasn't the opening kickoff, I don't think, but it was something close to it. Maybe the Vikings had gotten a field goal or something, or the Packers had gotten a field goal. Vern Lundquist said, he's here. I mean, it was like a mere, it was immortal. That is so good. That is so good. That is so good.

And, you know, I was playing golf with a couple of lifelong Vikings fans the other day, and it came up, the Herschel thing. And they brought up the whole eye formation and the outset, like, why did we do zone running? And when I was watching an old game, I think maybe it was Herschel's second year or something, or at the end of that first year when it was clear that it wasn't really working. And it was the Monday Night Football broadcast. And Dan Deardorff is just losing his mind how they're using Herschel Walker so wrong. And I guess Herschel sort of did justify that a little later in his career with Philadelphia.

He had a great year at some point, but it was never, never a fit. And the Dallas side of that is probably more incredible. And this is where it gets into how harsh do we want to be. But them and then you mentioned the era. So now we understand team timelines and everything else. But to not understand what they were doing there and think how could you give away this running back who's good when you have no other real talent on the team but this also dovetailed into questions about whether jimmy

johnson could actually coach questions about whether trey achman could play, the Steve Walsh believers are so good. Well, that Steve Walsh thing was hilarious. But with Jimmy Johnson, he came in as a college coach who had never coached in the NFL. Right at the time that Jerry Jones was kicking out, Jerry Jones bought the team and brought on his friend, Jimmy Johnson. And they booted out Tom Landry unceremoniously. And even though fans were wanting him to kind of go before that, they still got really mad. And then when he started out like 0-5 or whatever, 0-6,

and then traded away the player, the best player on the team jimmy knowing all well that he didn't fit persial didn't fit what he was trying to do either so he thought he was good trade bait but when he traded he also he also drafted steve walsh in the supplemental draft who was his quarterback at the university of miami and that pissed off troy acheman um so right then and there he had troy and that pissed off troy aikman um so right then and there he had troy aiken pissed off him for a couple years but but that year jimmy johnson was getting the mo and tom landry was really really really kind of reveling in it talking a lot of bad stuff about jimmy johnson when they were like a 1 14 and he had just got fired. Well, that did turn around eventually, but the Steve Walsh thing was real. And you include it in your book that, yeah, I mean, no, no, no surprise who shows up in this

with a bad take. Skip Bayless, president of the Steve Walsh Club. Skip Bayless loves Steve Walsh because he wasn't Aikman. And here's the thing about Skip Bayless. He does the same thing. I know he had that issue with Troy Aikman about his book where he said that there was a rumor that someone said that Troy Aikman was gay. And he put that in his book and Troy Aikman hates him forever for it. But way before that, if you look at Skip Bayless, the way he is about guys, certain players now, he targets a certain player like lebron james anything lebron james does skip will criticize him for and even if lebron does anything good he'll give him a backhanded compliment for it but he he had that same playbook with troy acheman

when troy acheman was on the team from the start and he went the way he was able to do it was make it divisive with steve walsh and saying that j saying that Jimmy Johnson preferred Steve Walsh, which wasn't true at all. Jimmy Johnson picked Steve Walsh in the supplemental draft that year, and he had to give up a first round pick the next year for it. But he picked him because, one, he wanted to make sure, just in case Aikman wasn't great, he wanted to have a backup. But he wanted to use him as trade bait too and get more draft picks. And he wanted to hype him up too. He wanted to prop him up as someone who was decent. So during that time he had a quarterback,

he had a quarterback controversy and type of stuff, you know, but it ended up being kind of a move that pissed off a lot and uh he had to finish it off but but he ended up trading to the saints steve walsh ended up trading to the saint was traded to the saints for and even probably a bigger steal than the herschel trade they got like a first a second round and third round pick for steve walsh mediocre quarterback and then steve Walsh, mediocre quarterback. And then Steve Walsh played for the Saints, his first game in 1990 for the Saints, had a similar type of thing that Herschel did.

He had a great game. They beat the Browns. And the whole New Orleans media was like hailing the general manager as a genius. Well, certainlyve walsh is not the only uh bad quarterback take in your book in fact there are dozens and dozens but you talk about things that you just don't remember because either it was too long ago or opinions just fly into the air and then disappear um and maybe that's a part of the reason that we have such hot takes because no, there really isn't any accountability to it when people overreact to certain things. But the Packers trading for Brett Favre and also drafting Brian Brom. Because there is a clip of Todd McShay saying, you know, this Brian Braum, he's probably drafted to replace Aaron Rodgers.

And he's a better player than Aaron Rodgers. I did not remember an era or a time where there was question about whether Aaron Rodgers could be the next Packers quarterback. Or really the Brian Braum hype era. Now that's one that you can't believe actually happened well aaron rogers whether aaron rogers was going to be good was still an enigma because he had been there for three years so no one actually knew so i mean he still had uh the chance to not be good and and and but they did but when they pushed out bre Favre in 2008, after the 2000, I think it was after the 2007 season. Right. They pushed out Brett Favre in March 2008. And and Brian Brom was picked in the second round.

Brian Brom was a player out of Louisville who was at his highest point the year before. And he was really being considered as a possible number one pick if he would have gone out, but he didn't. He's like a Louisville legend there. Like he's his whole family. I mean, his brother's now the head coach. Yeah, so Brahm was picked in the second round. And I think people still remembered him from the year before.

I don't think people were like 100% sold on Rodgers. They just hadn't seen him play in three years, really, like for the most part. So it was just a take that, you know, Braum looked like a good quarterback. They picked him in the second round. It was a big deal because Baron Rodgers was coming in to be the starter, and they just picked a quarterback in the second round, just like when it was when, you know, they picked Rodgers in the the first round and then when they picked jordan love you know years later but uh merrill hodge and and then todd mcshay said i think he's got better upside a bigger upside than aaron rogers and um

mcshay never really liked rogers that much He didn't like him going into the draft either. He was skeptical about the offense they had in California, whether it was going to come in. That was kind of a thing they said about the homes. Draft coverage, everybody knows on the show, Fred, that it drives me completely insane. I mean, when you have people who are writing, and this is one for you to look up,

that Malik Willis is a generational talent, and then it turns out that Malik Willis cannot even step on a football field. And then he drafts another quarterback the next year. I just go, what did you guys miss there? The league drafts him in the third round and draft analysts think that he's, you know, a future superstar. What happened there? What was that separation?

And I guess it's sort of part of the entertainment. But then the draft person eventually starts to think that they actually do know if people are going to be good or not, which I think what your entire book shows us is that we absolutely do not. And I wonder if you have, other than the Brian Brom has higher upside than Aaron Rodgers, if you have a favorite draft one, because I mean, that is a big part of your book, all the draft takes and hype that ended up going sideways. But do you have one that if someone asks, what's sort of the essence of your book? Like what's your favorite draft-related cult take?

What would you say it is? Well, one of my favorites is – I don't know. It's not – it wasn't – the take wasn't made, like, prior to the draft, like a draft coverage. But it was a tweet that was during the Mississippi State-Alabama game in 2014. And Dak Prescott was playing for Mississippi State, and Mississippi State I think was number one in the country maybe at that time because they had beat Auburn and there was – people were getting knocked off left and right alabama got knocked off and they were getting killed by alabama

dak prescott was getting killed and colin cowherd tweeted dak prescott is a backup in the nfl period at tight end, period. That one is really funny. I mean, it's really funny. That type of stuff is funny. There was one I have with Bruce Smith in the book where someone was picking the biggest loser, the biggest, the worst pick by each team in the draft, and it was the 1985 draft. The Bills picked Bruce Smith, number one overall, and that was this guy's, he was a draft guy.

I think his name was Joel Buxbaum. I don't know if he's still alive, but he used to have a thing, and he wrote, Bruce Smith was the biggest loser because he eats too much and he's lazy that was one I think someone wrote that John Freeze was on his way to becoming the next Dan Marino there's so many there was a good Emmett Smith one from my book it did not categorize him well at all, even from

when he was coming out of college. I think that those are funny. There's one chapter where I went against the rest of the book. Most of the book is me telling stories with the cold takes within the stories. But I have one chapter where I just do the draft and just list draft picks like they're cold takes, like I do on my feed. And there's just so many great ones there. Oh, there's that guy from sports, Eric Bedard. No, Greg Bedard. Eric Bedard's the pitcher.

People were high on Arizona tight end Gronkowski. I don't see it at all. It was a really bad one because everybody was high on Gronkowski. Everybody was high on him. But he got picked in the second round because everyone was scared of him because he missed his entire senior year of college because of a back injury. That's why he was picked in the second round. Not everybody loved him.

Yeah, I'm looking right now. One of my favorites here that connects to the Vikings is Larry Shannon is probably a step faster than Randy Moss. He's bigger and taller and faster than Moss. Yeah, that was another Jimmy Johnson thing. He didn't pick Randy Moss that year. And he was pissed. That was Jimmy Johnson who said that.

And he was pissed because everyone was talking about, why didn't he pick Randy Moss? And he's gone, oh, we got Larry Shannon instead. You know, he didn't have that great of a draft. When he was with the Dolphins, and I can tell you you because I'm a huge Dolphins fan from South Florida, and I had season tickets when Jimmy Johnson was there. They weren't that good, and he didn't pick a lot of great guys. He had some gems with Jason Taylor and Zach Thomas at the beginning,

but his first-round picks weren't good. I mean, it wasn't the same. He overloaded on draft picks in dallas that was huge and he just did really well with it yeah emmett smith one was uh from a columnist who wrote that he should be a solid productive player but he's no game breaker he's what herschel walker slumped into a plotting straight ahead type who won't outrun anyone that was so stupid because it's exactly that's that's the type of running back that jimmy johnson wanted as opposed to herschel walker why he traded him

he's the complete opposite of that now he wasn't break he wasn't a breakaway speed guy but uh uh he was definitely different than a plotting running back. He was a shifty, short running back. So, yeah, yeah, that's a good one. You even include a quote about a fan booing the Walter Payton pick in here. There is more Patrick Mahomes takes of Bucky Brooks saying that his flaws cannot be fixed. Oh, man. Yeah, I mean, we could go on all day with the draft ones because they're so good. But I did want to sort of strike to the core of this thing because I know that this is why you do it,

because some of these overreactions and hype and everything else and these definitive sports media tastes can drive you crazy. But it's really enjoyable to make fun of them looking back. But I guess, like, what, like, what do we learn from this? You know, I think one thing we learn is that that was how you made your name as a columnist back in the day. And sort of also on Twitter was just to you just throw it out there. I don't know if this is right or not, but I just got to take it. I'm just gonna have it.'m going to have that take today, no matter what the old columnists, they were always trying to have a one liner. And you notice there's a lot of like little jabs at players and things like that. That, you know, I mean, that was kind of the way you stood out as a columnist,

I guess that was a sign you were a good columnist. If you did the Rick Riley kind of one liners and stuff like that. But I also feel like there should be, because of something like this, a little more humility for all of us when we try to make predictions of like, well, you know, this, this sport is fun because we don't really know what's going to happen.

And I think the draft universe, why I get so agitated every draft season is because it's like have you guys learned nothing have you learned nothing from that like people have been doing this forever and yet still there's draft analysts coming out with these things this guy's definitely going to be this or that what how are we still doing this after so many years of intelligent uh football analysts being so wildly wrong i think well you know i think there could be more humility there but i don't know if humility sells either i think you have to just be i think you can learn what you can learn as a reporter or a journalist is that you can if you

want to say something that you want to be honest and give your full opinion. Go ahead. But you just have to make sure that you stay on brand and continue doing it, and it doesn't really matter. It just doesn't matter. Nobody cares how wrong you are. It's how many people watch you. So you're probably better off doing it. I mean, you're better off not being the guy who says, well, I don't know, it's going to be a close game.

It's hard to tell who wins. I can't really put my finger on it. Both teams have advantages. No one's going to see that. But I think it's gotten worse and worse because you're looking for a bigger, bigger quote. I mean, everything is in bites. Everything is in bites, sound bites, short, quick things.

Nobody wants to watch a clip anymore. Nobody wants to watch – even if there is a clip, there's a big quote on the top of it is what's going to be the big deal with it. So it's just – it's going to progressively get worse. It's more annoying now because it's so repetitive. Twitter is probably the most annoying app because of its repetition. Even good news is annoying on Twitter. Like, because everybody has to comment on it.

And if someone dunks the ball, everyone has to post the same dunk. You see it 8,000 times times it used to be you see the news once if you if if a news show covered it twice you'd be like oh that's a lot now it's all day every day the same quote the same thing uh i mean i i didn't care anymore that that guy for the de la cruz for the reds stole second third and home it was cool the first time it's like and you have to go up on above it and talk about how you have to say something impactful related to it that play is what makes people love baseball no it's not i mean it's just a regular it was a good it was a great play

it's a great sequence of events you know he could go over 10 after that i yeah i totally get it and i uh also see that you um spend too much time on twitter is probably another thing uh but i also feel the repetition more than anyone. I got sent the same stuff over and over and over and over. Oh, of course. Of course. Yeah. I mean, to your point, though, that's that with so many people trying to make their name in the draft space, in the NFL draft space, it's always like I have to say something more

definitive or I have to be more in the weeds on my like football take. Not even just the hottest it's like even pretending you know it's more than you do which i mean is fine to study the draft to report on the draft and everything else but to pretend like oh if you look at his hip movement here you can really say like come on man you don't know what you're talking about you're just kind of trying to get more people to think that you know what you're talking about or right and so uh that that does and so right what i like what i like for this is that it is a little bit of a reminder of sort of like you know beware of the draft hot take i think from my perspective as a

person who covers a team being the most accurate while having opinions, but also presenting all possibilities like, well, this is what I think is going to happen, but we have a lot of questions about it. And here's the question. And like you said, I think it can be less like where we can grab a soundbite of me and throw it out on Twitter and it gets either dunked on or retweeted. But I think it's probably better for the audience in the long run. If you do take a more approach of looking at a wide range of opinions and have a reason for it. I think one of the worst, one of the worst things is when I was reading through and it's people who

don't even seem to have a reason. They just say the chiefs drafting the Mahomes is stupid. It's just stupid. Like, okay, but why? There's also pressure to have a commentary on every single thing. So you have to talk about it. That's why gambling things don't really mean anything to me, because you're not picking.

You're under pressure, like people talking about their gambling picks as part of something that they're trying to gain an audience for. It's like a TV show about it. You're talking about picks because you're forced to. And that's how gambling is about. You pick the games that you like, but if it's not, if you're picking a college basketball, Mac, that's not, you're not going to put that on your show. You have to talk about the big game of the week in the NBA. Maybe that game sucks, but you still have to bet it so whether it's good right and any game that's got a lot of attention is

going to be the hardest game to bet because that's going to have the most people betting it's going to be the sharpest line i actually don't want people to stop with their hot takes because then you won't have as much material to work with but i don't think you'll ever be short, Fred, on material from Freezing Cold NFL Takes. So check out the book. It was a really fun read, and I really enjoyed it. It's not expensive either. It's very easy to go grab. I went and got it on Google Playbooks.

Freezing Cold NFL – Freezing Cold Takes NFL Media's Most Inaccurate Predictions and the Fascinating Stories Behind Them. I just love the way you presented it and really enjoyed the conversation. We could certainly go on for days, but I also want people to read the book and see all the great takes on Tom Coughlin or Bill Cower, Brett Favre. So there's, there's a lot of great ones there. So you're not hard to find on Twitter, old takes exposed. And I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show, man.

I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.